PERSICO, IGNAZIO. - Cardinal, b. in Naples on 30 Jan. 1823, d. in Rome on 7 Dec. 1895; he entered the Capuchins in 1839 and was ordained a priest in 1846. He immediately asked to go to the missions, and the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda sent him to Patna (India), where the apostolic vicar, the servant of God A. Hartmann, wanted him as a companion in his labors.
Accordingly, having been transferred to Bombay in 1850, Hartmann took him along with him. There he founded and directed the Bombay cath. examiner, which is still published; he fought alongside Hartmann and distinguished himself in the struggle against the schism of Goa. In 1853 he was sent as his special delegate to Rome and as commissioner of the apostolic vicars of India to London to defend the cause of the missions before the government, obtaining its recognition of the authority of the apostolic vicars. In 1854 he was appointed coadjutor of Hartmann, and in 1856 apostolic vicar of Hindustan (Agra). During the Indian uprising against the English he suffered greatly and then came to Europe.
In Rome he presented, together with Hartmann, various proposals or Memoranda for the improvement of the missions; then he returned to India. Having fallen ill in 1860, he was forced to return to Italy. After the war of secession, in 1866 he was sent by the Holy See on a secret mission to the United States; in 1869 he took part in the provincial Council of Baltimore and then in the Vatican Council. In 1870 he was appointed bishop of Savannah, but had to resign in 1873 because of his health. In 1874 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Canada, and in 1877 he was in the Indies to quell the Syro-Chaldean schism in Malabar and to prepare the erection of the hierarchy in India. In 1879 he was promoted bishop of the three united dioceses of Aquino, Pontecorvo and Sora, which he governed until 1887, when he was proclaimed archbishop of Damietta and sent to Ireland for the Home-rule question. Having returned to Rome, the Holy See appointed him vicar of the Vatican Chapter and in 1891 secretary of the Sacred Congr. de Prop. Fide. Finally, in 1893 Leo XIII created him cardinal priest of the title of St. Peter in Chains and appointed him prefect of the Sacred Congr. of Indulgences and of Sacred Relics. Amid so many labors and so many varieties of legations and missions, raised to such a high dignity, he always made the humility and affable pleasantness of a true son of St. Francis shine forth.
Bibliography8 works
Callisto Lepinot